Spring is getting ahead of itself

Global warming blamed as animals, plants appear sooner

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press

Published
4:00 am PDT, Thursday, March 20, 2008

###Live Caption:** ADVANCE FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 20 ** **FILE** Visitors take a stroll under the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin in Washington in this March 30, 2007 file photo. The National Park Service announced it's prediction on March 6, 2008, that most of the cherry trees circling the Tidal Basin will be in peak bloom when the National Cherry Blossom Festival begins on March 29 but thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom until around April 5. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)###Caption History:** ADVANCE FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 20 ** **FILE** Visitors take a stroll under the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin in Washington in this March 30, 2007 file photo. The National Park Service announced it's prediction on March 6, 2008, that most of the cherry trees circling the Tidal Basin will be in peak bloom when the National Cherry Blossom Festival begins on March 29 but thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom until around April 5. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)###Notes:###Special Instructions:A MARCH 30, 2007 FILE PHOTO. less

###Live Caption:** ADVANCE FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 20 ** **FILE** Visitors take a stroll under the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin in Washington in this March 30, 2007 file photo. The National Park Service ... more

Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais

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###Live Caption:** ADVANCE FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 20 ** **FILE** Visitors take a stroll under the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin in Washington in this March 30, 2007 file photo. The National Park Service announced it's prediction on March 6, 2008, that most of the cherry trees circling the Tidal Basin will be in peak bloom when the National Cherry Blossom Festival begins on March 29 but thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom until around April 5. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)###Caption History:** ADVANCE FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 20 ** **FILE** Visitors take a stroll under the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin in Washington in this March 30, 2007 file photo. The National Park Service announced it's prediction on March 6, 2008, that most of the cherry trees circling the Tidal Basin will be in peak bloom when the National Cherry Blossom Festival begins on March 29 but thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom until around April 5. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)###Notes:###Special Instructions:A MARCH 30, 2007 FILE PHOTO. less

###Live Caption:** ADVANCE FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 20 ** **FILE** Visitors take a stroll under the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin in Washington in this March 30, 2007 file photo. The National Park Service ... more

Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Spring is getting ahead of itself

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The capital's famous cherry trees are primed to burst out in a perfect pink peak about the end of this month. Thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom until around April 5.

In Central California, the first of the field skipper sachem, a drab little butterfly, was fluttering about on March 12. Just 25 years ago, that creature predictably emerged there anywhere from mid-April to mid-May.

And sneezes are coming earlier in Philadelphia. On March 9, when allergist Dr. Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, maple pollen was already heavy in the air. Less than two decades ago, that pollen couldn't be measured until late April.

Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying.

"The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said.

Blame global warming.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year's authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told the Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country.

Noticeable from space

What is happening is so noticeable that scientists can track it from space. Satellites measuring when land turns green found that spring "green-up" is arriving eight hours earlier every year on average since 1982 north of the Mason-Dixon line. In much of Florida and southern Texas and Louisiana, the satellites show spring coming a tad later, and bizarrely, in a complicated way, global warming can explain that too, the scientists said.

Biological timing is called phenology. Biological spring, which this year began Wednesday at 10:48 p.m. PDT, is based on the tilt of the Earth as it circles the sun. The federal government and some university scientists are so alarmed by the changes that last fall they created a National Phenology Network at the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor these changes.

The idea, said biologist and network director Jake Weltzin, is "to better understand the changes, and more important what do they mean? How does it affect humankind?"

There are winners, losers and lots of unknowns when global warming messes with natural timing. People may appreciate the smaller heating bills from shorter winters, the longer growing season and maybe even better tasting wines from some early grape harvests. But biologists also foresee big problems.

The changes could push some species to extinction. That's because certain plants and animals are dependent on each other for food and shelter. If the plants bloom or bear fruit before animals return or surface from hibernation, the critters could starve. Also, plants that bud too early can still be whacked by a late freeze.

The checkerspot butterfly disappeared from Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve because shifts in rainfall patterns changed the timing of plants on which it develops. When the plant dries out too early, the caterpillars die, said Notre Dame biology Professor Jessica Hellmann.

It's not easy on some people either. A controlled federal field study shows that warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide cause earlier, longer and stronger allergy seasons.

While some plants and animals use the amount of sunlight to figure out when it is spring, others base it on heat building in their tissues, much like a roasting turkey with a pop-up thermometer. Around the world, those internal thermometers are going to "pop" earlier than they once did.

This past winter's weather could send a mixed message. Globally, it was the coolest December through February since 2001 and a year of heavy snowfall. Despite that, it was still warmer than average for the 20th century.

Phenology data go back to the 14th century for harvest of wine grapes in France. There is a change in the timing of fall, but the change is biggest in spring. In the 1980s there was a sudden, big leap forward in spring blooming, scientists noticed. And spring keeps coming earlier at an accelerating rate.

See, smell, hear, feel, taste it

Unlike sea ice in the Arctic, the way climate change is tinkering with the natural timing of day-to-day life is concrete and local. People can experience it with all five senses:

-- You can see the trees and bushes blooming earlier. A photo of Lowell Cemetery, in Lowell, Mass., taken May 30, 1868, shows bare limbs. But the same scene photographed May 30, 2005, by Boston University biology Professor Richard Primack shows them in full spring greenery.

-- You can smell the lilacs and honeysuckle. In the West they are coming out two to four days earlier each decade over more than half a century, according to a 2001 study.

-- You can hear it in the birds. Scientists in Gothic, Colo., have watched the first robin of spring arrive earlier each year in that mountain ghost town, marching forward from April 9 in 1981 to March 14 last year. This year, heavy snows may keep the birds away until April.

-- You can feel it in your nose from increased allergies. Spring airborne pollen is being released about 20 hours earlier every year, according to a Swiss study that looked at allergies since 1979.

-- You can even taste it in the honey. Bees, which sample many plants, are producing their peak amount of honey weeks earlier. The nectar is coming from different plants now, which means noticeably different honey - at least in Highland, Md., where Wayne Esaias has been monitoring honey production since 1992. Instead of the rich, red, earthy tulip poplar honey that used to be prevalent, bees are producing lighter, fruitier black locust honey.